"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One-Hundred-And-Twenty: Battle Plans
(The Battle Of Starcourt Mall, Pt. 2)
***
Rowan crossed her arms as she stood in front of the turned-off fountain, listening with increasing dread as Mike revealed what had happened on the surface for the past three days—that the Mind Flayer had returned, and it was after El. Steve stood beside her, listening with his own frown that the kids had once more been involved in fighting monsters.
"The Mind Flayer. It built this monster in Hawkins to stop El. To kill her and pave a way into our world," Mike explained, and Rowan saw her brother flinch, Will putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. Mike had already said what the Mind Flayer had used to build this monster—the melted remains of the people it possessed. Rowan couldn't even imagine the pain of feeling that over and over again that her brother had to endure.
"And it almost did—that was just one tiny piece of it," Max elaborated, Cami nodding.
"A second longer, and it might have," Cami admitted, speaking into being what they all knew to be true. Guilt stabbed at Rowan, at not protecting her brother and El and the other kids from the monster.
If I was just here...
"How big is this thing?" Hopper questioned from where he was sitting next to El, holding his adopted daughter as she recovered, stroking her hair. El's leg was stretched out, a new bandage wrapped around the wound that Rowan had cauterised after the reunion shared between her, Alistair and Aunt Aco. It would definitely scar, though—Rowan only hoped her lightning had been enough to kill any infection. Ideally, Hopper would have wanted El in a hospital despite the risk, but they didn't live in an ideal world—and the Mind Flayer would be after El again.
"It's big. Thirty feet, at least," Jonathan answered.
"Yeah. It sorta destroyed your cabin. Sorry," Lucas revealed, giving a sheepish look to Hopper as the police chief stared at Lucas.
Rowan frowned, somewhat sad at the news. She knew that cabin was meant to hide El as much as it was a home. If it was destroyed, then she had nowhere else to go, and neither did Hopper, until it was fixed.
"Okay, so just to be clear," Steve interjected, making all eyes turn to him, "this big fleshy spider... thing that hurt El is some kind of gigantic... weapon?"
"Yes," Nancy affirmed.
"But instead of like screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon... with melted people," Steve went on.
Again, Alistair flinched. Hugin cawed comfortingly as Will held Alistair tighter as Robin raised her eyebrows and Valerie looked torn between shock and horror and Rowan, muttered, "Fuck."
"Yes, exactly," Nancy affirmed exasperatedly.
"Yeah, okay. I... yeah, just making sure," Steve mumbled, cowed. Rowan rested her hand on Steve's shoulder as she shot a glare at Nancy—just because she was exhausted and tense didn't give her the excuse to snap at Steve. And yet her glare died as the full weight of this crashed down on her.
